Fighting Poverty with Economics

A Mochi moment from Sadie who writes I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com

Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story. Living a life in full is the conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout, and I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm happy to have Alistair Wright on today's show. He's an amazing young man, all of 24 years old, but quite accomplished. He's taken a focus of economics and brought that to bear in his position as founder and managing director of the Genesis Foundation. On helping refugees in particular right now a focus in Istanbul, Turkey, to be able to get their feet underneath themselves, to be able to be in a safe environment, to be able to help take care of themselves, help take care of their families and get out of a downward position or a downward spiral of the challenges of being a refugee and not speaking the language in the country that you're now calling home. He's an amazing person. He has gone through a lot of adventures, adventurous things that he'll talk about in today's episode. So without further ado and a tip of the hat to Gracie Wong, our associate producer who put us in touch. She's known him for a number of years and thanks a lot, Gracie. I really appreciate it. He's an amazing guy to get to know and look forward to continuing to keep in touch with him and happy to introduce him to our listeners. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks. Today I'd like to welcome Alistair Wright, who's the founding and managing director of the Genesis Foundation. Alistair, it's great to have you here today.

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Great, great. Tell us, let's start off just a little bit about background, about your background, not necessarily the Genesis foundation. We'll get to that. But tell us a little bit about You?

Well, I am 24. I graduated university two years ago, went back to Scotland. I immigrated to the United States in 99, end of 99. And I've been moving around ever since I was a kid. It was pretty much every two years we'd move somewhere else.

Why is that?

Well, my dad's job, he was a minister. He's also worked for the European Union. That's where I was born in Belgium. And my dad is a very good, staunch person, very strong backbone. And so when he was asked to do some stuff that he wasn't appreciative of, then he decided to quit and, and take a. Take it up somewhere else. So we moved a lot. That's kind of why I got into my general life that I have now. Just had great opportunities to explore the world and see things at a young age. And I've never really looked back.

That's great. So you had mentioned before we started recording you have a brother. Do you have other siblings too?

Yeah, I'm the third of five. So I have middle child syndrome. Undiagnosed other than me.

Maybe by the end of this we'll figure it out.

I have two older brothers. It's weird, our family kind of works in three little sections. Three oldest brothers are hyper competitive with each other and I'm the youngest, so the most hard done on. And then I have a little sister who is the only girl in our house, so she's a little bit more of a princess. And then I have a 10 year old brother who is the baby. So.

So he doesn't tell you what to do or does he?

I actually 2 days ago I lost the slap bet to him. So I, you know, I like to keep it, keep it light. But yeah, I try to be a good older brother to him and a good figure for the few days that I am around in Chicago that I get to hang out with them.

So Chicago now home for the time

being, it's, it's a base. I would say more home is a really, you know, home is where the heart is, which is definitely true, but it's not. I found this out when I went to university because the whole time I was in high school I thought, no, you know, I'm not, I'm still very European in my mindset. So I'm gonna go back, back to Scotland. And as soon as I went back, everyone's like, wow, you're so American. So that sort of back and forth was, was a bit rough. So I actually just really started when I pushed myself. I started to find that it's a comfort and you can make anybody's home or any community and that we're all bit of brothers and sisters or if you're older than you're an uncle to somebody. But the family is very fluid and not really biological anymore.

So did you go to a number of high or a number of schools?

At the beginning I went to kindergarten in Mississippi, and then I went. I was homeschooled in the UK for a little bit because we didn't know where we were moving to next. And then when I came here, I did two years of private school in Tinley park and we kind of moved out of that and I was homeschooled. And then I started going to Moraine Valley and then went to Carl Sandberg and then I went to. Yeah, back to Scotland.

Is that where you went to university?

Yeah, University of Edinburgh. I did international business, particularly entrepreneurship strategy and developing world.

Gotcha. So I know from looking at your background too, you were editor in chief of Bullseye magazine. Tell us about that.

So there's a student organization called utec, Edinburgh University Trading and Investment Club. And they trade and invest. It's a way of training people who want to be investment bankers, merchant bankers. And they had a magazine, but then they canceled it because they didn't think it was worth the investment. And I knew the president and chairman at the time, and I'd done a lot with the club earlier, and they asked me to head up this magazine. So what we did was we kind of decided that in order for it to be worth the investment, it should be educational and worthwhile to the people, the students who would read it. And our greater vision was that people who don't, who are not interested in economics or finance, could pick it up and get something out of it. So for instance, one of Crisodagio wrote on it was the Ebola crisis. And he took it from the angle of why is chocolate more expensive? And it's just kind of like, you know, everyone's just wondering why, you know, why is chocolate more expensive? All this stuff. And it comes down to the fact that most of chocolate cocoa production is in these small countries in the western part of Africa. And so because they have Ebola, then they're losing workers and because, you know, and then there's also people can't cross the borders as easily. So we were trying to take very everyday things and make them accessible to people through kind of like an economics lens.

That's great. That's great. You're really going to broaden the readership and gain awareness.

Yeah, I don't think economics is as boring as some professors make.

It doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be. So that was what we were trying to do with Bullseye.

Gotcha. So. And then also a lot of volunteer work and it seems like that's maybe been in a variety of different places as well too.

Yeah, people don't think I'm high as worthwhile to pay for me to do stuff, so I end up having to volunteer to get my foot in the door. There was one fresh site which was a consultancy I was really big into kind of analyzing how businesses work and how to increase their abilities through whatever resources they already have. So I worked in kind of the poor project area of Edinburgh. There was a facility that was trying to get kids off of the street by giving them opportunities to be artful. And so we tried to help them because they had a very limited budget. So we looked at what rooms they already had. I mean, they had a facility, I'd say It was about 20 rooms and they were dotting things all over. So we just kind of compressed them, allowing them to rent out as office space to others and increase their revenues and that sort of stuff.

So you really put the economic horsepower into figuring out things to be able to cost effective or.

Yeah, we're trying to make a practical solution to it, so hopefully it worked out. I haven't followed up on that yet.

That's fantastic. So Scotland, United States, other countries that you spent a fair amount of time in.

Yeah, I've. So yeah, I worked in France for about three, three months. I was trying to, trying to learn French. I worked in Mexico, I've worked in Colombia, I worked in Cyprus. Lived in Turkey for a long time now. Was born in Belgium. I've lived in England a bit.

Wow.

Just dotted around.

That's really amazing. Fantastic. So are you fluent in other languages besides English?

I was actually, I was talking to Gracie about this. My grammar is actually pretty horrendous, but I have, I have very good conversation. Just because when I go, like when I was in Mexico, I lived with Mexicans. I lived in Escapozalco in the north of Mexico City and just all day, every day speaking. So I speak really slangy like, you know Chilango, which is the, the name of somebody from df. Same with Colombia. Like I learn stuff like what's happening, my man? You know, rather than like, hello, my good sir, how are you? So yeah, I can converse fairly well. English, Spanish, French and Turkish. I'm working on Arabic. It's gonna be a little bit more of a struggle. Yeah. But I don't feel like I can communicate with the people unless I know their language.

I think people really appreciate that as well, too.

A lot of laughing. I hope that's a good sign.

It's an icebreaker, too, when you're sitting there struggling, looking for the right wor. So have all these things then led up to the formation of Genesis Foundation?

Yeah, so it's a kind of. I kind of felt like I was not put in a corner, but I chased down a lot of different organizations. When I graduated university, there were. I put up more than 20 applications and didn't get a single interview. And I worked really hard at university, and I thought I was, you know, highly, highly skilled. Turns out not.

I don't know about that.

So then I started looking. I came back and sort of roofing because I know one of my family friends, his dad started a roofing company. So I, you know, I have debts to pay. So first day back, started working. I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do, so I started researching for humanitarian organizations, and they all would let me work, but it's two years voluntary, and I had the debt, so I couldn't pay it off. So, I mean, yeah, it's a combination of experience and necessities that have kind of pushed me in this direction. But Genesis, yeah, is a culmination of what I've wanted to do. Essentially, I'd say about 16, 17 when I started to. There's a political element in it. There's a psychological element. There's economic, there's a business, foreign languages and exploring the world. So, yeah, I'd say definitely from that way.

Well, let's unpack it a little bit. Help our listeners understand what kinds of things that you're involved with, what Genesis does.

So I think that the. Possibly the simplest way of thinking about it is that we're an incubator, which means that we guide businesses so that they can develop. Now, the people that we're. That's kind of the university background of it. The practical element is that we work with refugees in Istanbul and Turkey. So what we found out is that there are a lot of people with very few opportunities and almost zero capital to start with. So we give them very basic investment to buy them things like mops and a bucket, some soaps, air freshener, feather duster, and then say, okay, I'm gonna go. Like, I do the marketing for them through Facebook and other social media. Platforms and get clients for them, and then they go out and they clean and then they take home all of that revenue. Because the way that we've set up the Genesis foundation is a non for profit. So we get supported by people in the US and then through that we're able to, you know, 24, seven, help out and grow these businesses for them.

That's great. So do they come with certain skill sets or do they get the training too?

Well, that is actually part of the first stage. We have three different services that are kind of like a development. The first stage is that we connect with them. First of all, we need to find the refugees, meet with them, find out what languages they speak, do they have a high school education, what is their kind of their background as far as professional training. And that usually takes us about a week or so. And we kind of get an idea of their position.

And how do you find you find them rather than them find you?

Yeah, so I mean, I try my best always to integrate with the community that I work with. So it started out with I found a community center and I said, you know, I'll do whatever you want in order to just kind of get my foot in the door.

This is in Turkey.

In Turkey. And so I started working with this community center, small projects, Istanbul. And at the beginning I helped out with the kids. And then I started to work on an earrings project called Drop Earrings Not Bombs, which is a very, very successful. And it's a very beautiful.

Like your branding. That's cool.

Yeah, right. And you just, you kind of, just while you hang out with people, you know, you have a coffee with them in the morning or whatever it may be, they talk to you about, okay, I'm having this problem. Or do you know anyone?

Are these primarily Syrian refugees?

That one is primarily Syrian with a mix of Iraqi. But.

And do they speak Arabic or.

Yeah, they speak Arabic, but Arabic and Turkish. There are a lot of Arabic loan words in Turkish. So, like, kitabin is the same book. You know, books, pens, writing, that type of stuff, but grammatically and everything else is entirely different. So they, they have a very big struggle because they're, you know, what are you meant to do? You can't sell stuff in a different language.

So are they able to even, like, have formal jobs? You know, because I would think filling out things and not really citizenship status and things like that.

As far as legal status, there's some of them that are able to apply through the United nations. And I know people have gone through the UNHCR and That's definitely been beneficial to them. The problem with the large admin like that is they tend to be a piece of paper and a dossier bureaucratic kind of thing. So they kind of get lost.

So you're a bit more like boots on the ground gorilla, going into the community and insinuating yourself into the culture and the people. And I would imagine it's probably not easy, but I mean, once you kind of get through that, then there's a greater level of trust. You're not some big bureaucratic institution, you're a human being, that sort of a thing. I mean, is that their response to you and your colleagues?

Yeah, it does take a little bit of time, but I think people, you know, it's this sort of old cliche of actions speak louder than words when they see you. You know, you ask them questions and all that so stuff and, you know, they, some of them tell you a bit about their lives, some of them are very cautious about it. But then a week later when you show up with like, hey, remember how we talked about this? Here it is, and they go, oh, wow, I actually wasn't expecting that.

Never thought I'd see you again.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So over time you definitely build up and yeah, like I, I mean, I don't have like a 9 to 5 job. It, you know, it's more like an 8 to 7. But then when you get off of work, I'm integrated. So all my friends are Syrian, Iraqi, Gambian, Pakistani. So we go out and watch the football or go play pool. And in those moments again, you can, you can reinforce like, yeah, I'm here for you. This is my whole heart. Rather than, hey, I'm getting paid to do this or whatever.

So is this all still within that part? One of the three parts.

The three parts is connect, build and mentor. And the first one is really just to seek out and find out what the situation is and give them basic humanitarian aid where it's needed. We've given shoes. Cell phone is an amazing thing. It's $15 and you can really change someone's life for that.

That gives them a way even to be contacted.

Exactly.

To have that connection.

Nokia phones, one of the most brilliant things ever. Indestructible, you know, $10, $5 for a SIM card and you can call them and, you know, you can say, hey, we have a job for you. You know, and that really gets them to develop. After that we start building, you know, putting together a business for them. We have a cleaning business now that has employed four People, it's kind of dwindled a little since I've not been able to be there. But, you know, they make half of their income four days a month just from this cleaning business. So that's kind of the building stage where we try to give them a good foundation, connect them with regular clients.

And you created the cleaning business, too, or did that.

Okay, yeah. It's a Pakistani couple that I met. They were living in a basement and really kind of an abusive situation. But, yeah, they had no. They really had no way out. When we met them, it was going to take them 53 days of straight labor in order to pay their way out of this debt. And it's all because they're the. I'm sorry, I can't use the names. They're under pressure, but the wife is Shia and the husband is Sunni. And the opposite sides of the families dislike that union and had given them death threats. So they actually crossed the mountains of Iran into Turkey under snow in cotton shirts. And they. They made it to Istanbul and they went, okay, I don't speak any of the language here. They found, like, a poor neighborhood and finally found someone speaking in Urdu. And then they connected with them, and then this guy, you know, wasn't their friend. He was a kind of like a slum lord.

And take advantage of him.

Took advantage of him. And, you know, that's where we found them. I originally found them so I could give them food. You know, $12 will feed them for 10 days.

Wow.

So it's like, okay, I went to the shops with them, buy them rice, buying lentils, buy them oranges, you know, good, stable things to try to keep their health. And yeah, you know, we talked to them, and it turns out, I mean, they're 24 and they kind of graduated high school, but I don't know how well educated that is. Don't speak any Turkish, don't speak any Arabic. Their English is a little bit muddled. What jobs can you do? So the idea came to me of, you can clean if you have. If you have a mop and bucket, you know. So then we just started out. I said, clean my house. We'll just start with mine. We take some photos, and we start taking photos, putting it online, writing little comments, trying to make it. I have a silly one because of a cat playing with my. My brush broom. And, you know, you take a picture of it, you put it online and say, you know, cats are essential to the cleaning process. Without them, there would nothing to clean. And, you know, people get a little chuckle out of that and they start to feel a little bit more of a personality rather than a sad case. And that's kind of, I think that's one of the larger goals of Genesis. Like the mindset behind it is to bring these people back into regular life. They have had a lot of their life taken away and they, they need a bit of hope and a little bit of regularity.

Well, even that sort of a thing, I mean, it brings, you know, self esteem.

Right.

Sense of purpose. And you know, I even just like the, the aspect of, you know, humor. I mean, there's so many things that you get stripped of as a refugee, you know, they're, you know, dehumanizing, not just demoralizing, but being able to do those kinds of things. And I think kind of the kernel that I hear through everything that you're saying is just really that sense of hope, you know, that rather than helplessness or hopelessness.

Yeah, absolutely. When people talk about poverty is unending or this, that and the other thing, but I really think it's a little bit of love and investment. A little bit of investment. Sometimes the money, sometimes of time, sometimes it's just to be a kind of shoulder.

Well, and someone that they can trust rather than like a slumlord, even though he spoke the language, you would kind of think, oh good, we have a kinship. And indeed it turned out to be abusive, like you said. So is that two and three or are we still.

The third one is kind of when you get the mentorship. And that's. So the idea again is to be able to deal with as many people as possible. And what I'd like, what I'm trying to train people to do, is to become the same sort of person that I was when I first met them so that they can then go back and help the people.

Right.

And so that it becomes a self perpetuating cycle.

They're an envoy in medical school. They call it See one, do one, teach one.

See one, do one, teach one. Okay, I'm gonna have to keep that.

You can use that.

Thank you. Medical school. Yeah. So the third step is to get them to do their own marketing, do their own finances. So for instance, you know, so you're doing serial startups. Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. And I mean, so for instance, this cleaning business for. Yeah, for about $250 you can get a very legitimate business running where they will start making 800 to 1500 dollars a month within three months.

It's really life changing for them.

Right, yeah. That's the beauty of them. I know them very well now. I've worked very, a lot with them. And from what I understand, I'm one of their only, only friends who actually takes care of them. So we do have something very deep in that. But when I ask them, like, you know what, what motivates you? What are you. What are you looking for? They're a young married couple and they want to have kids. So that's what they want is to live in a safe neighborhood, to be able to afford a child, for the wife not to have to work the whole time. Those, those different things. So. Which we're trying to set them up so that they can get back, because that was what they were trying to start in Pakistan and it all got disrupted, but there's no reason why it shouldn't happen.

That's great. So do you also then help navigate whatever kinds of things are like, are there business licenses and registrations? Or how does it work in Istem in Turkey?

So that's one of the really nice things is that this idea of a micro business, it's really. I mean, it is very, very small. You're talking about starting out with $50 to buy, like, the earrings. Making one of the earrings is really about. It's like 60. 60 cents to a dollar for material, and then the rest is just labor. We sell them for $15 internationally. So there's a lot of just buying very small resources and getting them built up. But no, Turkey is very open for that because also Turkey has its own, you know, regardless of the refugees, there are a lot of poor Turks. So the government doesn't have, you know, whether or not they want to. They don't have the resources to check up on business licenses or. Or any of these things. So it's not. I wouldn't say it's black market, but it's like a shadowy, you know, people just kind of operate because they need to. There is an organization, impr. I think it's the International Middle East Peace Research Fellowship. One of my flatmates was from there, and I actually got very, very integrated with them. But they have told me that once it gets to the stage, I believe it's something like once you make $15,000 a year, then you have to register.

That'd be a good goal.

Yeah, right. So that is actually my kind of end goal for about. I'm hoping we can get that within two years, because then when you register, then it means that the workers become legally residents, which then means that they have legal Access to schools and hospitals. And one of the biggest things is that they can access banks, which sounds kind of silly and something. We take it for granted you can't rent. Like these people can't rent. So every time they try to get an apartment or rent it out, it's done by shady people who want cash in hand. So it's. That's one of the kind of big struggles to get them out of the informal and get them back into regular life.

So in your point about like sort of the see one, do one, teach one aspect, then as people start to see what you've done, is your goal to sort of put you yourself out of business of having to do that? Because now you've got, you know, tens, hundreds, however many people in Istanbul being able to help get other people going. Maybe they are from the same country or what's. Do you have like a specific goal for that or growing genesis beyond Istanbul?

Yeah, absolutely. So I take these things as stages of development. I wish I were at that stage, but I have a lot to learn in order to get there. But what we are aiming for is a purpose built, sort of like a community center essentially where all of our entrepreneurs can go and be stationed. So for instance, you would need a room so you can put the mop and bucket and washing machine so you can do linens and start expanding out. Brilliant. And yeah, what I would like to do, my general philosophy is that the only person who's not, is not a refugee who works for us is me. And I try my very hardest to make all funds circle within the community as much as possible. But yeah, we are looking to. Their idea is if we can make it operate by itself, then that means that we've kind of found a model that we can transplant into various different places. Now maybe in the long run it means that I have to start up each individual one, or maybe I'm able to train somebody to be able to start their own ones and kind of not franchise, but in those sort of ways. That's what I mean by having a global vision. We're trying to figure out something that is, that comes before culture and becomes before the linguistic barriers and everything. Things like personal responsibility and a bit of ownership and getting those sort of things back on track.

That's great. So of all the places in the world, why Istanbul?

I already had a connection there a little bit. I spent my third year of university there. I was given a map of places that I could spend abroad. And Scotland is the north west and Istanbul is the southeast. So I chose that for this point. Yeah, furthest point, Istanbul. Well, I'll tell you, from a Turk's perspective, they say if the world were a country, Istanbul would be the capital. And that's fairly true. It's, it's a really good location because the European Union and Europe has eyes on Istanbul. The Middle east has eyes on Istanbul. There's a lot of trade and commerce and, and migration that comes from Africa. It's very, very central. And I already spoke a bit of Turkish new people there and yeah, I thought that that would be a good place to start at least. I'm very interested in the Middle east and I think what's happening in the Middle east is not going to be resolved within the next five years. So as far as having people that we can help, I think there's going to be consistent inflow for all Turkey.

I mean, to your point too, of kind of like a world capital, I mean it really straddles Europe and Asia. I think it really has those kinds of influences and challenges as well too.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't know my history well enough, but when it was Constantinople, I mean it really kind of was the center of the world in that era. It seemed like.

So a lot of powerful empires have gone in, in and out of that city. Yeah.

So do you have certain, like what makes you feel that, okay, what I've gotten established is now sustainable, growable, scalable from Istanbul? When would you know that that's the case? I mean, what kinds of markers or what kinds of metrics would say, hey, you know, we're ensconced, we're good now I need to go find another spot?

That's a hard question because we're not really close to that stage yet. We're still in the early startup. But. The way that I've organized Genesis is that everything kind of goes in its own circle. And so the larger circles of five years are really mirror images of what we do in a six month period. So as far as starting up refugees and getting them into a business and getting organized, and then what we do is we slowly give them the reins as we back out. And so the idea is that kind of once we have our classes organized, a schedule and or like an actual building which is its own right, has its own right, then we can start like handing over responsibilities little by little to people. And then when it's less that I'm making decisions for people, then you kind of start to see, okay, it's functioning by itself.

That's good. Well, I mean that Pardon me. I think that makes logical sense too, in the sense of you also feeling comfortable. You know, it's part of it. You want to see it grow and you want to see it be able to be self sustaining. But then also the things that you'll learn, I think will be those same kinds of things that, you know, you'll tweak to the culture, tweak to the situation, and then be able to make that next step.

So is it,

I think maybe your, pardon me, economics focus vis a vis poverty is a critical thing, but do you also see issues with regard to conflict and warring? I mean, obviously that's a spur that creates a refugee situation and people being ousted from their homes and things like that. Do you, do you also then take a focus on kind of peace issues and things like that, or are you more so the consequence?

So I mean, economics is the study of resources is how I'd break it down. And from what I understand, and I'm open to ideas, but war comes from conflict of resources. So those, those I feel like go hand in hand. I think there are, I mean, just refugees. There's 60 million refugees in the world, which is the population of the United Kingdom. Wow, that's, that's huge. And it's gonna get, it's gonna get worse from climate change and all these different things as resources get crunched. So I mean, there is a huge problem already out there and it's growing and it's kind of going to get worse. So from that perspective, I knew I had to do something. I wasn't going to watch it on tv. And that's really what kind of got me motivated for these things. But then I started looking at it and I wanted a practical solution. I wanted something that actually made a difference. The humanitarians that I work with are very lovely people. They care very deeply. A lot of them are, you know, 24, 25 and have picked up sticks and, you know, said no to corporate jobs and wealth and comfort in order to help these people out. Phenomenal people, but they don't, they generally don't think practically. And so I kind of wanted to bring in a new element that gives like a day to day solution rather than we'll just forever be handing out food or clothes. Although, although those are very valuable. I'm not trying to belittle them, but that is specifically why Genesis does exactly what it does is because we found that this is a very practical solution

to long term, high leverage, high return.

Exactly.

That speaks to the economic philosophy I think behind it as well, too. So, you know, your work is amazing and you're a very young man. What motivates you? What inspires you? What helps you? Because I know day in, day out, especially in country, can be bone grinding. So how do you keep motivated? How do you keep at it?

I, I never tried to. I tried to never look at the midterm because I feel like the midterm is where, where I get bogged down day to day. You look for small things, whether it's, you know, finding out that Persians and Arabs drink their tea differently or whatever. And there's this whole holding the cube in your mouth and this, you know, you're learning something, right? And that learning comes from communication with people that you care about. And so that in and of itself is gratifying. And then in the long run, you look at, okay, this is, this is a significant problem. You know, the bottom 1 billion people on this planet live on a dollar a day. So you think there's huge scale of problem. And if I am in some way a beneficial gear or cog in the, to alleviate some of that suffering, then absolutely I want to be a part of it. There are things that I do personally that my parents hate. I'm reckless with a lot of stuff. In the south side of Chicago, I used to skate and all that sort of stuff. And holding onto a car at 36 miles an hour with no shoes on. I really, really enjoy my adrenaline and that sense of adventure and chaos. So personally, I, I love being in the ghettos. I was explaining to Gracie that I have a set of clothes that I wear when I go, like going to a poor neighborhood so I can blend. I kind of squint my eyes a little bit more. And then. And people with, like, when I kick up my, my Turkish slang, some people think I'm, I'm Kazakh or Uzbek and those types of moments. I really, I enjoy it because I'm like, I got them, you know. Yeah, I'm really, I'm really Scottish or American, so.

Surprise.

Yeah, surprise. I, I love those moments.

What's, what's been your diciest moment? What's been. Have you been in a risky situation that got sideways?

You know, my dad will laugh because I always managed to talk my way out of it. I've had, yeah, I've had some, some very dicey moments in the last six months. I was in Istanbul. I had seven attempted robberies, like pickpockety things. Some of them taxi drivers are terrible. They're really, really terrible because you give them 50 liter and they'll switch it out for five and they'll say, you only give me five and then they'll give you 20 and change. Like that makes sense. But you know, you have to be constant and aware. Other people. Yeah, pickpockets. I ended up having to like throw that guy up against the wall because he, you know, he's stealing a lot of money from me and it was bad. We had two robbers break into our house and actually stabbed my flatmate three times. I took him to the hospital five in the morning. They're trying to steal our computers and everything. We don't know how they figured out because we're on the top floor. So to us it didn't make sense. Why did they target us? Yeah, that's, it's part of it, you know, that's why I don't have nice things, is because you like, you know. Yeah. I mean, but you start to realize things of like okay, I can, I can hide money in the sock in my shoe, I can hide, you know, a hundred dollars if I need it and then in my wallet I'll only have five. And if somebody pickpocks me or whatever, you know, always take the money out and give it to them. Never give them your wallet. You learn things from mistakes,

so that probably does create some anxiety for your folks.

Yeah. My dad's a military man though he grew up in, he spent 35 years in the Royal Navy and so when I was younger I wanted to be in the Royal Marines. He used to train for that and everything and really wanted to be in a war zone, to be on the front line and he was fine with that. And then when I said I wanted to do it, you know, for a non for profit, then I think something clicked. I don't know.

Not a whole lot of backup then.

Yeah, no, I think he realizes this is what I'm called to do and if that's how I go out, then that's exactly where I should be at that time.

You probably would appreciate a calling. Right. And like you said, I forget if this was before we started recording or not, but this is really your lifelong passion and goal. I mean 40 years to build this, create this and grow it.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's great. Have you ever heard of an organization they're based out of the US called Endeavor?

Sounds familiar.

Linda Rotenberg is one of the co founders of it. She's a long ago friend. They have, I think, an appreciation for the self sustaining economic aspects. To be happy to, to give you an introduction to her you might want to check out their work, but their kind of approach, I'm not going to get this clear, she'll get mad at me. But it's sort of like they teach people business principles, help get them started, seed funding, whatever that is. And to your point too, about banks, I mean, it's like if you can do commerce through your phone or some sort of digital kind of way, it's so much easier and better and you don't get taken advantage of and all these other kinds of things. So the criticalness in some countries of being able to have a big bank account is huge. I totally agree. But they then help them, they teach them, you know, basic business and economic principles, et cetera, help them, you know, with startup funding and then help them kind of become sustainable and to go launch and kind of rinse and repeat. And they do it in a variety of different countries. I think they started primarily in South America, I think where Linda or her family is from. And they've just, they've. One of their early folks was wanting to actually start a bank and started Lemon bank. And then that person did very successful with that, became a board member and became a huge donor. So there's a business model to be able to think about, you know, growing and having it be that way. But I think it's, you know, I think a lot of times in the humanitarian space, the whole economic aspect of being able to create sustainable, scalable kinds of things, like what you're doing with Genesis, you know, is huge and probably, I think, you know, vastly underappreciated as well too.

This I found out there's a lot of. It's a new research because the more books I read, you realize how new a lot of humanitarian work actually is because I guess it used to be kind of a big government sort of, they just drop aid in the billions and then that's kind of. You get corruption, whatever. And then they started to privately kind of give rice and food and lots of stuff and then that kind of got corrupted and everything. So it seems like there's. There's now a new generation of people who are trying to think a bit more practically about resolving the issues. Mohammed Yunus is a very classic famous one. And so I've actually. Sorry, sorry, Mr. Yunus, but I've stolen a bit of his ideas. He'd be proud. Yeah. And there's a new thing called self. Self funding community, which is something that we incorporate in Genesis as well. And it's essentially, it's a bank where there's no, external assets. Like, the assets don't come in externally, but they're all internal. So you have a group of the four of us, and every month we meet and say, okay, I'm putting in $100. So then at the end of the one month, you have 400, 812. But then, you know, at some point you can say, hey, I need a loan. And then you can withdraw from that bank. So. Because anybody puts in, like, everybody puts in and everybody takes out, then you set your interest rates at this, that and the other thing. And it's a way that people can start circulating money, storing money for themselves. People also get insurance out of it. And like a health insurance. People have flown back to their country to bury their parents. So there are a lot of opportunities that it's just a collective sharing of money.

Democratization of the reigning. In a sense.

Yeah. So there's some very beautiful things. One of the guys. I believe it was set up to help Senegalese refugees in Barcelona. I talked to one of the original founders, and he said, one of the. I think it's. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's after about five years, a group of Senegalese people, they circulated something like €10,000 into a hundred thousand euros. Just think of the power of that. That. That they essentially have access to. And at that point they're like, oh, well, I. I want to start a restaurant business, and I need 20,000. It's actually available for them, you know, without them having to go to an official bank. So, yeah, there are a lot of ingenious ways of. Really, it's resource management. Coming back to economics.

Exactly. Circling back. So. So you mentioned, like, Eunice, what other. Are there people that you find influential or books or other organizations that kind of inspire you or give you models to mimic?

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a lot of models. You can find inspiration in everything. I. I've learned a lot from. Like, my day job right now is roofer. I've learned a lot from that. Is a small. It started off one man in a pickup truck with some shingles.

Wow.

And now it's. It's in the order of several million dollars. There's a. We have a separate semi truck, nine vehicles, all that sort of stuff. And so I talk to the management. You know, it's family, friends, everything. So I talk to them, and they. They say various things. Like, it's customer loyalty, customer service. So, like, every day when I. When I go to a job and I have to fix somebody's Shingles or roof, this, that and the other thing. Being kind, polite, and courteous means that they'll always come back. They're never going to use a different roofing company. Even if we mess up. Even if we mess up, they will still come back to us because they. They know that we're honest and straightforward.

Trust you. They know you.

Exactly. So, I mean, I take that and I apply it to the cleaning company to make sure that. That they never lose a client. That's one of the, you know, just giving a stable foundation. As far as influential people, this is probably too cliche these days, but I do have a lot of respect for Elon Musk. He has some interesting ideas. I think some of them were. I'm not trying to defame you, Mr. Musk, if you're listening, he's a big fan. You're a big fan of the show. But, like, you know, he has some fairly wacky ideas. And that's what I really appreciate about him. What I started when I started researching about his philosophy, his work philosophy. It seemed there's two parts, and that's one. He has this sort of like, I have this amazing dream that is so big that everyone thinks I'm crazy. I was like, awesome. I love that. And then the second part is, let's break it down into what steps it was take. And so even though he is dreaming about going to Mars and he's thinking about. I mean, if you ask him, I bet he would say that he's not even dreaming about it. He's just like, no, we're gonna do it. So he does that because he has a very clear understanding of what obstacles need to be overcome in order to get to that final stage. Like, the first principles is a physics philosophy. I use that all the time. I think it's very beneficial because I think a lot of us talk about the first problem, like, oh, we just need to do this first. And it's usually the second or third thing we need to do. There's usually something behind it that we need to figure out first and get organized, and then the second and third. Third will fall in line. So, I mean, I try to draw inspiration from anything I see.

That's great. That's great. In terms of the kinds of things that, let's say someone listens to this show and they really say, I totally get this. This is really terrific. What are ways that people can be helpful to you or Genesis foundation in your work? Donations volunteer.

Yeah. So it's still a little bit in the development stage of this part. So right now we are looking for funding for the actual organization as a whole. We have various generous donators who are taking a lot of that burden for us, thankfully. But what I'm trying to set up is actually to build packages where I can say to you $250. And this is what will get them

an outcomes orientation then. So to know if X dollars will yield Y results.

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to verify some of that, but at least. So imagine for the cleaners, if you were to give me $100 right now, what do I do with it? For the cleaners? Well, they, I mean, they already have mop and bucket and these sort of things and good soaps and detergents, yada, yada. So the next sort of thing is to make them, their work more professional because they're refugees. They have poorer, baggier whole clothes that are mismatched and all that sort of stuff. So to spend $15 to get them a polo that has their name on the, on the sleeve and then like an actual. Because we call it a clean start, that's the name of the cleaning business. Yeah, I've already got the corny dad jokes. I'm too young for that. But to get them to show up to somebody's house like that gives the customer so much more confidence to then also be able to give them, you know, $5 for 500 business cards that has their phone number and a website. They can go to, you know, $10 to build a website. These different things. Then you're like, okay, well now we can get them into a full professional sort of scale. And then people are more willing to take them on that. Backed up with, okay, we have 10 clients. And these are their comments, which I try to do. I try to chase up our clients and say, like, how many stars would you give this service? What would your comments be? What do you like about them? And just, just building that. So right now a lot of the funding goes into Genesis as itself. But what we're trying to do is organize that so that people from Chicago, people from all over are able to just bypass Genesis and go straight to investing in the organization. So that's our long term goal. I would say be mindful that the Middle east still gets cold. This is one of the shocks that a lot of people got. I was there for Christmas. We had a five day blizzard, two and a half, three feet of snow.

Wow.

And that is cold. Two, three months of about like hovering around 32. So, you know, hats and scarves and food there. I, I received very kind, generous donations of hats and scarves, but they had been shipped from the United States and bought in the United States from Pakistan. You know, and it's like the these funds, although very generous and very thoughtful, we can deal with them. But additionally what we try to do is there are a group of Syrian ladies who knit hats and scarves. So why not give them the money, right? And then buy them the materials and everything. And this is what I mean is trying to keep these circles, not excluding people, but trying to keep them tight so that the resources can circle around and as many times as possible before they get taken out of the community again. So yeah, we really try to have a holistic approach to it.

I remember I have a 501C3 that I started and one of our first projects we did a drive at the hospital that I was working in at my day job and it was for educational materials and what we call dry toiletries. So it could be a solid bar of soap or a toothbrush and things like that. And it cost like a frickin fortune to send it over. This was to Africa and then we found that and it took like four months. And in the process of doing that we kind of went through your Pakistan example, you know, reminded me of this. It was sort of like, well, people also donated toys and things. So it was sort of like, well, if this toy was manufactured, were we importers or exporters? If this toy was in Japan versus China versus whatever. And it was like, are you kidding? You know, it just. And that was really kind of a tipping point or an epiphany or pivot for us too to say while it seems like a good idea to be able to do these kinds of things, I mean, you know, here in the States there's backpack programs and things, you know, filled with school supplies that everybody's kind of used to and resonates with. But it's really the dollars going over that's, you know, even though there's exchange rate issues or whatever else with it, but those dollars and I just, just love the idea of spending on materials so that then people then can create what the need is over there, satisfy that need. So that's fantastic. That's great.

Yeah, it's sad that it doesn't sell as well if you're trying to raise funds, it doesn't sell as well.

But I think your idea of saying X number of dollars will create this, that really makes it understandable, tangible, less know, kind of, you know, in the ether kind of a thing. I think that's a great. And, and you know, probably using some of the same images and pictures and things that you use to market over there to say here's, here's what this looks like, you know, here's what this, this will result in. So can people. How do people get in touch with you if they are inspired by what your work is and want to be a support? Is there website and Twitter handles or what are good social media? Are you on social media as Genesis or you or.

Yeah, so I'm, I'm, I kind of took those down because they were getting stale as I was doing more of the admin as a day to day. We do have a website, the Genesis Foundation.org from that you can get the contacts. You can send a message connected to our email. Our email is the Same but@gmail.com. and what I would like to start using the Twitter and Instagram for is to get people more involved, even if it's nothing to do. The strategy has nothing to do with raising money. The strategy is that I want people to start looking at refugees and the global poor as people not without resources, but without opportunities.

There's a certain level of stigma around that too, right?

Yeah, I think there's a level of I don't want to just keep on handing out 10, 5, 50, $100 all the time to feed this guy. Oh, it's such a drain. And you're like, well that's why, that's why we're starting businesses so that he can, he can pay for his own food. What he needs is some tools and to be shown how to do it. While I'm in the U.S. i take opportunities to talk to people who started carpentry businesses when they were, you know, when they were 20. Well, what did you buy? I bought a Makina saw. I bought a hammer, a bunch of nails, a pouch, that sort of stuff. And it cost me $500 of investment. Started framing houses and I got a, you know, I got a thousand dollar off of that and I put it back in. And so we all understand this concept and that is, that's really what made America the greatest nation, was that it was a whole bunch of people who said what are the resources that I have around me and how can I use them to be, be productive and develop beyond what I am now? And that's why you have insane technological advances from the US that's not the refugees and the Turks and the Arabs and Pakistani or Africans. They're not any different. They still have the same.

Einstein was a refugee.

Right.

You know, I mean, it's sort of like, I think, oh gosh, former Secretary of state date Madeleine Albright. I think her parents were refugees. I mean, so it's sort of like, you know, business, political science, you know, refugee Sigmund Freud. So I mean it's just those kinds of things. The bias or the stigma or the, you know, the, sometimes the pushback of people not wanting to accept people in is, you know, is horrible. But also it's, you know, if you want to have a mercenary perspective, you know, bring in refugees because they can make a big difference.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's great. Well, we'll put in the show notes, the websites and Twitter and Instagram and things like that. Gosh, Alister, it's just been fantastic to have you on the show. I think we've kind of gone around the world. Are there any other things as we close that you want to make a point about or have we kind of covered the waterfront on the kinds of, of things that are important to you?

No, I think we've covered quite a lot of it. I just like to reiterate about when we look at the Middle east and it looks like such a crazy crisis and everything. Yeah, this is a kind of difficult thing to say, but I'm just going to go out and limit, say it. I think a lot of the way that we talk about people like ISIS is really just very stupid. It's not a problem solving way. It's an us and them or separation. What you need to understand is that these are similar people to you, but their circumstances have become so extreme that all they know is the extremities and that's how they act, interact, react and that, you know, extending an open hand of, of trying to understand first understand what the situation is and then build with them. We have like some humanitarian aid is like a will push them up from the bottom. Other governmental programs as well, we'll crush them down from the top. But it really is just the walk along them, they are really no different. As we were mentioning in the U.S. i mean my friends love and hate this, but I say I am the American dream because I was an immigrant here and I worked hard and I educated myself, went to the best universities I could, founded my own charity, yada yada, you know, worked construction, blue collar. But it's, you know, it's there in everybody. So it's really just to be mindful of that. And even if the Middle east or refugees really are not your calling. I don't expect it to be. It's the individual. It's like the daily small things that we do, how we interact with our customers, the patience and kindness that we have. You talk about fighting extremism. That's how you do it. I mean, it's very. People want these grand solutions, and I'm sorry to tell you, but it's not. It's. It's like it's a culmination of every little point. You know, look at the timeline, not the point on the time.

Yeah. It's like practicing extreme empathy.

Right, right. That's a beautiful way of saying it.

Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you again, Alistair. It's been fantastic to get to know you and know your work a little bit more. And we'll put in show notes about how to be in touch and hopefully be able to maybe have you back again and hear how things have gone.

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knott, llc. Assistant Gracie Wong Music Dan o' Brien Sam Rude Graphics Larry Newberry Executive producer and host, Dr. Chris Stout. To learn more, stop by our website alifeinfull.org for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and leave us a review on itunes. Thanks.